Fida Finds: The Amazing Drawings of Kelvin Okafor

Another Friday, another special pick from the Web by our media volunteers. We call these Fida (=”Friday”) Finds.

Londoner Kelvin Okafor is an artist whose reputation, to his parents’ relief, is growing by leaps and bounds.

“They were afraid of it not being very lucrative, for me to make a living from it”, he explains, “ but they’ve been very supportive and that’s helped me a lot to build more confidence.”

People seeing Kelvin Okafor’s drawings for the first time can be forgiven for mistaking them for photographs. Visit his website though, and you’ll learn from the artist himself that he is a Passionate penciled artist. Highly interested in detail and precision.

Most of his marvelously lifelike drawings, like the one below titled “Timeless”, are in pencil and charcoal.

Kelvin provides a fascinating step-by-step “evolution” of many drawings on his website.

With each successive panel, you can follow this drawing of a little girl called “Mia” as it seems to come to life:

His subjects are often celebrities whose faces are instantly recognizable. At other times, he might choose to draw a friend, or a visiting family member from Nigeria with an interesting profile.

Kelvin also generously shares his technique through short videos which are linked through his website. He spends 90 to 100 hours on each portrait!

In this profile he talks about his inspirations and motivations. He’s also got some good tips for aspiring young artists.